GeoEye CEO Matt O’Connell said in a Friday release that a combined company is better positioned provide the government with geospatial intelligence and satellite imagery during an era of reduced budgets.

DigitalGlobe said in a Friday announcement that its board of directors will “carefully review” and consider the proposal.

Recently, GeoEye’s share price was up nearly 6 percent from Thursday’s closing price of $24.03, while DigitalGlobe’s share price was up nearly 18 percent at $16.01.

DigitalGlobe shareholders would receive $8.50 per share in cash and $8.50 per share in GeoEye stock, a 26% premium on DigitalGlobe’s Thursday closing price.

The transaction is subject to approval from the U.S. government and both companies’ sets of shareholders.

In a released letter to DigitalGlobe CEO Jeffrey Tarr, O’Connell said GeoEye’s board of directors could consider increasing the cash portion of the transaction to 100% or increasing the stock portion of the offer, therefore decreasing the cash portion.

Goldman, Sachs & Company, Convergence Advisors LLC and Latham & Watkins LLP will advise GeoEye on the proposed transaction.

“Cloud computing puts big data and business analytics within reach,” said Executive Mosaic publisher Jim Garrettson. “But not everyone will know what to do with that flood of information. That’s where GovCon leaders come in.”

Other highlights in this issue include:

“GovConExec brings the people at the executive level into the forefront,” said Gerry Simone, editor-in-chief of Executive Mosaic Media’s online and print publications. “Readers meet CEOs leveraging technologies and forging partnerships as they help federal agencies solve problems.”

Entering its third year of publishing, GovConExec magazine is dedicated to providing government contracting executives with deep analysis of news and events shaping the public-sector contracting industry. Its unique coverage is an asset to the contracting community as it presents vital information about the business of government contractors from an executive point of view.

To subscribe or advertise in GovConExec magazine, go to www.GovConExec.com.

Based in Tysons Corner, Va., Executive Mosaic LLC is a leader in cross-media and senior executive networking programs. Daily comprehensive news coverage of issues affecting the government-contracting community can also be found at www.GovConWire.com, www.TheNewNewInternet.com, www.GovConExecutive.com, www.ExecutiveBiz.com and www.ExecutiveGov.com.

U.S. government contracting is a sector like none other, combining the skills and talents of executives from business, government, defense, IT and more. Executives dedicated to growing a strong enterprise and serving the largest customer in the world. It’s local, it’s global; it encompasses complex regulatory adherence and stunning creative innovation. It’s focused both on billion-dollar deals and the health of one returning veteran.

Our goal three years ago was to provide intelligence in a way that is as unique as this environment is. When readers tell us we’re a “must read”, as some have recently, we know we’re on the right track.

GovConExec is a uniquely targeted, independent publication that fills a vital need in a vital industry. We’ve been able to be ahead of trending issues such as the cloud, insider security threats, and the new C4ISR. But what ultimately sets GovConExec apart is its deft way of bringing the people at the executive level in this industry into the equation—their voices, personalities, and expertise.

In each issue, we both drill down and look ahead to discover the issues that will be shaping GovCon in months to come. We go straight to high-level executives at the top GovCon companies to create a magazine of leaders speaking to leaders. Accuracy, ethics, diversity, and objectivity are key to the process.

Our early premise for the magazine was that print media steps outside of the 24-hour news cycle to get perspective and allows a depth that well serves our target readers. Senior-level executives can count on our daily news blogs under the Executive Mosaic publications banner to stay on top of the day-by-day changes in the sector. But it’s the magazine that provides the big picture.

Our circulation growth has validated that premise and is one measure of our success. But our true benchmark is whether we’ve sparked new ideas for you and your companies—and, ultimately, better services for our nation.

What’s next? Once again, you can find out right here. In this issue, we offer an overview of Big Data, how harnessing it in new ways can impact government and defense—and the strategies of companies that provide federal services. And considering the highly active transactions scene in GovCon, we decided to add an outside expert column from the investment banking ranks to provide an M&A perspective, beginning this issue.

Finally, in our CEO Profile, we think you’ll get as much out of spending some time with Deloitte Federal Services CEO Robin Lineberger as we did: the popular CEO Profile traces the life and career of an executive who is as enthusiastic about innovative technology as he is about jumping on his bike to help out a good cause.

Whether you’ve been reading for three years, or this is your first issue of GovConExec, we welcome your comments, responses, and ideas. Email us at: editor@executivemosaic.com

Jim Garrettson, Publisher

Gerry Simone, Editor-in-Chief

GovCon Legal Officers Find Themselves in Demand for More Complex and Comprehensive Functions than Ever Before.

General counsel, chief legal officer, vice president of legal affairs—the titles may vary from one GovCon company to the next, but the foundation of the job remains the same: ensuring government contractors stay compliant with government regulations in all they do.

And counsel from all fields agree: Few companies anywhere, regardless of industry, deal with the complexities GovCon legal officers do. Today’s climate of increasing regulation and “do-more-with-less” budgets have only increased that complexity.

How do legal officers themselves see this role, and how do they envision it evolving moving forward? Just as the companies they serve do, many frame the answers to these questions in terms of mission.

A Foundation of Compliance

The GovCon legal officer’s role begins with formal legal support—laws, ethics, compliance, security. The primary function of GovCon legal officers and the departments they oversee is ensuring that the company complies with all applicable laws, regulations, and standards while maintaining and growing the business.

“In addition to formal departmental responsibilities, the mandate for the General Counsel at Alion is to provide strategic, holistic legal and business advice to help Alion grow and succeed in a legal, ethical, low-risk manner,” said Thomas McCabe, senior vice president, general counsel, and secretary at Alion Science and Technology Corporation.

GovCon legal officers agree that there’s a lot at stake.

“The ultimate penalty for failure to comply is potentially extinctive: suspension and debarment,” said Lannie Elderkin, deputy general counsel of CSC and chief legal counsel for the North American Public Sector. “All the more reason why we cannot waver from a culture of integrity.”

“Also, protests have become a part of the contracting process, so we must expect to have challenges to our awards,” McCabe said.

At a time when corporations are focused on rebuilding trust and maintaining transparency, GovCon legal officers are more deeply and strategically enmeshed than ever before. The job is more complex and integrated, with more hats to wear.

Gregory Nixon, senior vice president, general counsel, and corporate secretary for DynCorp International, agrees with the need for trust: “They must have a steadfast and unwavering commitment to ethics, compliance, and integrity.”

On this foundation rests the multiple additional roles of the legal counsel. They must work with all departments to encourage innovation within legal and ethical boundaries—for the overriding purpose of delivering competitive, compliant solutions to government customers.

GovCon legal officers deal with traditional legal matters, but also contribute to nearly every other business leadership team on both micro and macro levels. They’re strategists, partners, communicators—all in the context of moving the company forward.

A Look at Breadth and Depth

The following areas are just a few that are increasingly becoming critical facets of the legal officer’s role:

• Forming business strategy:

In addition to leading their divisions, many legal officers play key roles in company transactions, program restructures, business capture, and proposal efforts. They also advise company executives in making smart decisions about company direction.

“They are innovative strategists, helping to identify solutions that maximize the company’s ability to win,” Nixon said.

“By getting involved in the early phases of a business transaction, the general counsel can help the line managers set things up quickly and creatively,” McCabe said. “Rather than fulfill the ‘sales prevention’ stereotype, we try to proactively assist the business units to increase sales properly and effectively.”

“You must be strategic, actively participating in business direction and M&A decisions, and tactical, supporting contracting and operations in multiple locations worldwide,” said Jim Winner, vice president and general counsel for ITT Exelis, Information Systems.

• Navigating regulatory complexity:

“My colleagues on the commercial side often remark on the level and complexity of laws, regulations, policies, and guidelines with which we comply on the public sector side,” Elderkin said. “Every step in the acquisition lifecycle and operation of the infrastructure is regulated and audited.”

“Different from commercial firms, government contractors are subject to a unique and rapidly expanding body of regulations,” said Vincent Maffeo, executive vice president, general counsel and audit, SAIC.

For instance, Grant Thornton’s Government Contractor Industry Roundtable report for 2011, “An Industry Under Pressure,” pointed to a current “climate of enforcement,” where clauses added to the contractor code of ethics and conduct and new rules on organizational conflicts of interest, false claims and mandatory disclosure have upped the anxiety and prompted resource shifts. Increased regulations on businesses overall have become a rallying cry for groups such as the Competitive Enterprise Institute, which said in a recent report that agencies have passed nearly 38,700 rules since 2001 at a rate of about 4,000 per year. The icing on that cake: The number of bid protests filed in fiscal 2011 continued to climb, as it has since 2007.

“Ever-increasing regulation has caused many cases where the law imposes multiple requirements that, in some cases, seem to even contradict each other,” McCabe said. “Alion is absolutely committed to following the full letter and spirit of the law and looks to the general counsel to guide the company through this regulatory maze.”

• Supporting international business concerns:

When leading legal operations of a company with personnel deployed globally, many in harsh and hostile territories, additional factors apply.

“When you have thousands of people deployed to more than 35 countries, with some in active warzones, complex matters of international, employment, regulatory, and corporate law are a part of a typical day,” Nixon said.

• Intellectual property:

With GovCon companies developing innovative processes and tools, the legal officer often must help determine what constitutes intellectual property and how to guard its value—in the United States and overseas, where intellectual property law can be quite different.

At Alion, protecting intellectual property has been a priority. Recently, McCabe’s team assisted Alion in leveraging its intellectual property to capitalize on promising new applications for the company’s software tools in the oil and gas industry.

• Making resources do more:

Legal officers have added yet another hat: financial. As the GovCon sector has faced increasing regulation, tightening budgets, and shifting public perception, legal officers find themselves having to do the same job, but with fewer personnel and financial resources.

“The business, regulatory, and political climate in which we operate is increasingly dynamic and, frankly, uncertain in many respects,” Elderkin said. As government budgets become constrained, cost-efficiency proves essential. Yet, in an environment that has only grown more resource-constrained, both regulations and complexities are mounting.

“With continual government funding constraints, gaps, and shortfalls, all legal officers must work in close partnership with companies’ finance professionals to ensure and maintain expertise on fiscal laws, cost accounting, and related financial rules,” Winner said.

Demonstrating Value

Increasingly, companies are looking to legal officers to demonstrate value—and legal officers deliver. One of the most prominent examples can be found in assisting the company in developing leaner, smarter ways to achieve optimum compliance. This can include consolidating compliance functions, using more assertive leadership practices to protect shareholders and their investments, and solving problems ahead of the curve.

Building compliance up front into every company function adds value as well. This means infusing it into fundamental business and strategic planning functions and across operational activities:  leadership and planning meetings, proposal development reviews, teaming and contract negotiations, policy and procedure reviews, and training.

“In order to demonstrate our value, we continually strive to be out from behind our desks and integrated with our business teams, so they can see we are dedicated to understanding their challenges and helping find and implement effective solutions,” Winner said.

And by being present in the early phases of business transactions, legal officers can help line managers set the process up to yield greater time efficiencies, better compliance, the best potential results, and  more creative solutions.

When it comes to the dynamic M&A environment of the GovCon field, making a company lean, agile, and ready in advance of whatever challenges a new vertical market may portend helps build value for the company and the customer. Such M&A readiness requires a forward-thinking legal officer. When companies merge into new territory—health IT or cybersecurity, for example—the legal chiefs are likely the first to understand the need for appropriate privacy and security compliance controls.

Anticipatory Thinking

Legal teams must continually lean forward to identify emerging requirements and communicate and implement them throughout the entire organization. In doing so, they focus on the big picture—the company’s governing principles.

“The trend is to focus on the board, enhancing commitment to sound governance principles,” Elderkin said. “Legal officers are guardians of company reputation through design and enforcement of disciplined compliance processes and practices and shaping a culture of ethics and integrity.”

In order to stay ahead, legal officers are also entrusted with identifying and managing a team of trusted legal advisors to align compliance initiatives across business units.

Finally, GovCon legal officers do none of this from a position of isolation. Skilled in collaboration, they know how to bring in the right resources for any issue. This provides for a seamless approach to compliance—protecting both the top and bottom lines for the company.

Many Roles within a Role

GovCon legal officers need to wear many hats in their dynamic roles. Here are a few areas they need to stay on top of:
• Antitrust and trade regulations
• Intellectual property
• International and import/export
• Board of directors duties
• Industries ranging from aviation and aerospace to telecommunications and beyond
• Corporate finance
• Business transactions
• Technology and internet law
• Employee benefits and pensions
• Government contracts
• Real estate
• Regulated industries
• Mergers and acquisitions
• Security clearances and foreign ownership, control, and influence (FOCI) mitigation
• Bid protests and claims
• Cost accounting standards
• Audits and investigations

Guardians of Value

Ensuring compliance, creating value, mastering the changing regulations—these are just a few of the many responsibilities wrapped into the single role of GovCon legal officer. Here are some of the senior legal officers from large government contracting companies who lead in these areas:

Whit Cobb, general counsel, PAE; Tom McCabe, senior vice president, general counsel and secretary, Alion Science and Technology Corporation; Kevin Hartley, associate general counsel, Microsoft; Lannie Elderkin, deputy general counsel of CSC, chief legal counsel for the North American Public Sector; Scott Silverstein, associate general counsel, office of the general counsel, Deloitte LLP; Arnold Morse, senior vice president and chief legal officer, CACI International Inc.; Chris Heinrich, vice president, legal, KBR; Janet Eichers, vice president and associate general counsel, DRS Defense Solutions, LLC; Stuart Young, general counsel, URS Federal Services; Gregory Nixon, senior vice president, general counsel and corporate secretary, DynCorp International Inc.; Michael Finn, vice president and general counsel, General Dynamics Advanced Information Systems; Jim Rittinger, associate general counsel and secretary, Dell; Jim Winner, vice president and general counsel, ITT Exelis, Information Systems; Anne Donohue, senior vice president and general counsel, SRA International; Vincent Maffeo, executive vice president, general counsel and audit, SAIC

GCE

GovCon HR professionals step up outreach to draft veterans into corporate ranks.

Military experience lends especially desirable skills to the government contracting workplace: Leadership. Responsibility. Integrity. Can-do attitude. And, often, an understanding of national issues that aligns with company mission.

Any employer, not just GovCon companies, would welcome these capabilities. Yet unemployment rates among post-9/11 veterans have long been persistently high, outpacing record unemployment among their civilian counterparts.

Recent numbers give cause for optimism and might indicate that employers are getting the message. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported the unemployment rate for veterans of the two Gulf wars dropped from 15.2 percent at the beginning of 2011 to 9.1 percent by the beginning of this year. The overall veteran employment rate fell to 7.5 percent—lower than unemployment nationally.

Among government contractors, this trend is nothing new. They’ve long championed veteran recruitment. Why? Many GovCon human relations professionals point to a cultural connection. A Society for Human Resources Management study in 2010 revealed the majority of civilian employers struggled to translate veterans’ military skills to civilian job experience and openings in their workplaces.

But GovCon companies get it—and they’ve been leading the charge toward hiring veterans.

Matching the Mission

GovCon human resources professionals agree: An effective hiring strategy must align with the organization’s overall mission and core values. The theory applies across industries, company structure, and workforce size. But perhaps nowhere does the universal HR principle rings as true as among government contractors—where many missions literally put human lives on the line.

“Given our markets and our mission to deliver service excellence, aligning our requirements to hiring veterans comes naturally to us,” said Greg McElroy, director of talent acquisition at Serco. Currently, Serco has 9,000 employees at more than 100 locations across North America. In 2011, the long-standing DoD service provider earned recognition as a Military Times EDGE “Best for Vets” employer and as a “Top 10 Best Corporation for Veteran-Owned Businesses” from NaVOBA’s Vetrepreneur magazine.

As one of the nation’s largest defense contractors, Northrop Grumman employs more than 18,000 veterans. Its robust military recruiting strategy—and a new hire veteran rate of 26 percent—helped Northrop Grumman earn the 11th spot on G.I. Jobs magazine’s 2012 Top 100 Military-Friendly Employers. In 2011, civilianjobs.com also recognized Northrop Grumman as a “Most Valuable Employer for Military.”

Sotera Defense Solutions also takes pride in its workforce of 1,600-plus professionals—25 percent of whom come from military ranks. “Veterans are a great fit for Sotera because they bring first-hand knowledge of our customers’ challenges and our national security mission,” said Lisa Broome, senior vice president for human resources.

An HR commitment to the organization’s core values creates an edge in the marketplace. “ATK’s values identify patriotism and people as our greatest assets and are among the key factors that give us a competitive advantage,” said Christine Wolf, senior vice president of human resources. “Military service shapes and tests a person’s skills under the most challenging circumstances, and we look for that kind of person to join our workforce.”

Operation Outreach

What’s the best way to find candidates with military service experience?  Strategic outreach—deployed on multiple fronts. Sotera credits employee referrals with many of its hired veterans, for example, but also relies on established partnerships with organizations such as the Wounded Warrior Project.

ATK has seen the most success listing job openings with veteran programs and accessing résumés through certain databases, including the Employer Partnership organization.

With a history of service to the DoD, CGI Federal’s current veteran hiring program builds on three primary components: working directly with military Career and Alumni Programs, hosting job fairs targeted at veterans, and using online job boards focused on veteran applicants. Its U.S.-based onshore delivery centers may be especially well suited to military experience. The newest location in Belton, Texas, was chosen specifically for its proximity to Ft. Hood and the returning military personnel and families who call the base home.

At some ITT Exelis locations, the percentage of employees from military backgrounds can be as high as 80 percent. So it should come as no surprise that the company has a strong military outreach program. Its multifaceted recruitment strategy includes taking part in Transitioning Assistance Program events, attending military-focused career fairs, posting to military job boards, and developing a broad interactive campaign targeting candidates with military experience.

The corporate website, www.exelisinc.com, also features a designated link to “Transitioning Military” in the Careers section. Here, jobseekers discover that “Military experience is a plus” and gain valuable advice on transitioning to civilian life, including the employment search, veteran benefits, and available resources. The web page also makes note of the company’s seventh year as a G.I. Jobs magazine Top 100 Military-Friendly Employer, with 8 percent veteran hiring in 2012.

Outreach calls for a significant investment: in websites and materials, in advertising, and in special events. Northrop Grumman made room in its corporate recruitment advertising budget last year to target veterans and take part in more than 100 career events for military jobseekers. Its Operation IMPACT (Injured Military Pursuing Assisted Career Transition) provides career transition support to military service members and their families who have been severely injured. To date, the initiative has helped more than 100 wounded warriors find meaningful employment.

Northrop Grumman reaches out to military veterans via its corporate website, as well. A dedicated careers section (www.careers.northropgrumman.com) offers transitioning advice for veterans—from résumé preparation and job search strategies to interview tips and security clearance details. A veteran employee spotlight helps make job opportunities all the more real for jobseekers.

One of the most common outreach activities, job fairs, consistently gets results. Serco—a key member of the VA for VETS team—participated as a hiring company at the initiative’s January 2012 Veteran Career Fair and Expo in Washington, DC. More than 20 Serco operations and HR professionals attended, meeting with 500+ veterans and collecting more than 200 résumés from qualified candidates. Several hires can already be attributed to the event.

Serco rounds out its efforts with Veteran’s Forums and military alumni programs; advertisements in base publications and on key websites; and TAP and ACAP sessions. “We have an established presence on military bases throughout the U.S. and around the world where we are active in the community,” McElroy added. “We take full advantage of relationships we build to source exceptional talent among military personnel whose skills match requirements for open positions at Serco.”

Competitive Advantage

What’s the return like on this kind of resource-intensive investment? HR professionals peg it as high—and well worth it.

“CGI has always valued veterans for their leadership, experience, dedication, and above-and-beyond work ethic,” said Kim Gordon, director of recruiting. “Our hiring practices for veterans, as for all of our members, are focused on supporting our clients’ missions.”

Others echoed similar sentiments. “It is essential that Serco identify and hire talented military veterans to sustain our competitive advantage in the marketplace and provide a signature level of service to our customers,” McElroy said.

“Northrop Grumman recognizes and values the talents and contributions that U.S. service men and women bring to the workplace,” added Michele P. Toth, vice president of human resources and administration for Northrop Grumman Information Systems. “Attracting military talent is critical to our company’s performance.”

Understanding customer needs also ranked high among the HR advantages veterans offer. “Military experience provides valuable leadership skills and an understanding of our military customers’ needs and the environments in which we operate,” said Patricia Park, vice president of human resources for ITT Exelis, Information Systems. “And that helps us develop superior products and services.”

At ITT Exelis, HR has discovered transitioning military personnel perform especially well on overseas deployments. “Veterans bring a depth of understanding to these opportunities and to the demands of overseas operations,” Park said. “As a result, we have been able to perform in an agile manner at staffing these types of positions, and our customers have been delighted with the assimilation of our employees to these types of difficult-to-fill requirements.”

Forward March

As with any hiring strategy, veteran outreach must evolve to keep pace with the employment marketplace. HR professionals—especially in the ever-changing GovCon arena—say it’s critical to take time to evaluate progress, measure results, and adapt their military recruitment strategies to workplace, economic, and political developments.

With effective military outreach already in place, Serco is preparing to go one better. “We’re in the latter stages of a project started late last year to review and strengthen our efforts,”  McElroy said. This project benchmarked Serco’s recruitment outreach against industry practices. ITT Exelis is also currently in goal-setting and benchmarking mode—with an eye toward broadening its military outreach efforts.

Finding qualified military employees got a whole lot easier in recent years. “More and more resources are becoming available to recruit veterans, but at times it is difficult to participate in them all,” McElroy said. “Our biggest challenge has frankly been aligning the many avenues available to employers to reach veterans seeking employment.”

ATK’s Wolf agrees. “One challenge has been determining which programs we should participate in and which events we should attend,” she said. “With limited resources, we need to ensure we are selecting those that closely align with ATK’s business and hiring needs.”

On the Home Front

Veteran employment programs go a long way toward easing the transition from military service to civilian life. One with heavy GovCon involvement is American Corporate Partners. The participant list, which includes Boeing, Deloitte, General Dynamics, HP, IBM, and more, reads like a Who’s Who of GovCon companies. Many executives of these companies aid with the program’s mentoring and business advisory offerings. Last year, for instance, Accenture provided a grant and help for 50 executives with military backgrounds to serve as mentors. Visit http://www.acp-usa.org for more.

Others among the many programs include:

Transitioning Assistance Program. TAP helps military personnel and family members return to civilian life with pre-separation counseling, employment workshops, and benefits briefings, as well as vocational and employment assistance to veterans with service-connected disabilities. http://www.turbotap.org.

Army Career and Alumni Program. ACAP offers transitioners on major installations the employment training, benefit counseling, and other transition resources they need to quickly land a job—often before they leave active duty. https://www.hrc.army.mil/site/active/tagd/acap.

VA for VETs works to reintegrate, retrain, and hire veteran employees at the Department of Veterans Affairs with career-search tools, career-development services, and coaching support for veterans and military service members. http://vaforvets.va.gov.

GCE

With the many needs and worthy organizations competing for corporate and individual support, how do GovCon leaders choose? Here’s a look at what motivates giving back.

What makes you want to give? We looked at the corporate responsibility and philanthropy activities at several GovCon companies and among individual leaders and found some interesting stories behind the action.

While serving the community is an imperative for nearly all companies, how they choose to do so involves some tough decisions with the multitude of needs out there. Many support more than one charity or activity. Aligning with company mission, engaging employee commitment, and responding to a personal belief and passion all factor into making these decisions. Here’s a look at how a few GovCon companies make the choice.

General Dynamics Information Technology

Dan Johnson, president

A powerful motivation: When Dan Johnson’s granddaughter was 2 years old, she was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes. He wanted to find a way to help not only his own family, but also others who were struggling against the disease. He began serving on the board of the American Diabetes Association Research Foundation, raising funds for grant awards to researchers looking for a cure. The ADA is the nation’s largest voluntary health organization in the fight against diabetes.

An unexpected honor: Last year, GDIT helped support the ADA’s local Father of the Year awards event—where Johnson was named Father of the Year.

But even better: His granddaughter is now 8 years old and still doing well—and still inspiring the members of the Research Foundation board.

DynCorp International

Steve Gaffney, chairman

Seeing red: DynCorp supports numerous organizations, but one particular effort really caught on. Many employees had been wearing red shirts on Fridays to show support for those serving in the U.S. military. So DynCorp decided to make its own red shirts and sell them to raise money for the Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors.

Spreading worldwide: The effort gained support among DynCorp teams around the world and raised thousands of dollars for TAPS.

A choice all could work with: “TAPS is a remarkable program,” Gaffney says. “While some organizations limit assistance to military families, TAPS provides assistance to both military and contractor families who have lost a loved one. TAPS helped the families of our own heroes who lost their lives while on mission. It’s simple: When your people are so passionate about the mission that they knowingly put themselves in harm’s way, you want to do everything you can to support them and their families. Our relationship with TAPS helps us to do just that.”

CGI

George D. Schindler, president, CGI U.S.

Doing what it does best: CGI has found using its members’ skills in service has been a winning formula in its community support activities. “We promote a ‘bottom up’ approach, encouraging our members to bring us innovative ideas where we can contribute using our core business expertise in technology,” Schindler says. “While our work with not-for-profits often includes board service, we focus on identifying pro bono projects using technology that can have a ‘multiplier’ effect on the organizations we work with.”

Nonprofit with a data challenge: Share Our Strength has a vision to end child hunger by 2015—and Maryland was a focus area. But to get to that goal, it needed help to pinpoint the problems. What nutrition programs were available, and which ones were working? How could the nonprofit target its tight resources to truly make a difference?

Crunching numbers against hunger: The CGI project team developed a data management and reporting tool to aggregate and analyze monthly reports received from partner agencies. The tracking tool generates easy-to-read charts and graphs that let those in the field know what’s improving and where help is most needed.

Unisys

Ted Davies, president, Federal Systems

Getting to grassroots: While Unisys supports several charitable organizations, it has found that United Way empowers its employees to connect and collaborate with local charities that matter to them. Through its internal, grassroots UGive program, Unisys employees have had an impact on dozens of local nonprofit organizations.

Top-down: United Way has the additional advantage of being a program Unisys’ entire North American business can support. One campaign is run out of corporate headquarters in Pennsylvania; another active campaign is focused on the National Capital Area from Federal Systems headquarters in Reston.

Strategic skills: Davies is on the United Way National Capital Area board and serves as co-chair of a group developing a strategic plan for the organization, which has the tall order of supporting more than 950 local charities.

The personal element: “Over the past five years, United Way NCA has directed more than $150 million dollars to our nonprofit charity partners to help solve entrenched and complex community problems—one person at a time,” Davies said. “The impact that United Way NCA has on our local community excites and motivates me—that’s why I got involved.”

IBM Global Services

Chuck Prow, general manager, public sector

Taking its cue from community: IBM looks at what’s needed in local communities in choosing support efforts through more than 17 program areas in its locations around the world. One such program in the metropolitan Washington area aligns seamlessly with IBM’s capabilities: “the development and use of technologies that improve the way that people and organizations get work done.” Unexpectedly perhaps, it’s at Wolf Trap Foundation for the Performing Arts, where Prow serves on the board, along with leaders from several other area technology companies.

The science of art: “As readers in the Washington area will know, Wolf Trap provides an amazing array of music, theater, and performance art,” Prow said. “What readers may not know is that Wolf Trap launched one of the first national Science, Technology, Education, and Math (STEM) programs that connects artists with teachers and focuses on elementary school children.”

Getting them interested early: Interactive and engaging, instruction through the arts can bring science and math concepts to children at an early age, setting a lifelong pattern of curiosity and exploration. The United States lags behind in STEM areas, and early learning has proven to be one of the best ways to get ahead.

STEM makes sense: “When I’m involved in community programs, I like to focus on supporting the education system as it prepares students for the next generation of technology jobs,” Prow said. “IBM competes with other employers for the best talent, and we believe that current and future IBMers need STEM skills to ‘Build a Smarter Planet.’ STEM skills improve our ability to compete globally.”

MAXIMUS

Richard Montoni, CEO, president, and director

Do it yourself: One way to take the charitable effort to multiple causes that align with what employees seek is to create a foundation to do the job. The MAXIMUS Foundation is a nonprofit organization funded by charitable contributions from the company and employees. “In keeping with our mission of ‘Helping Government Serve the People,’ the foundation awards cash grants to organizations that help disadvantaged populations, particularly children and young adults, achieve personal growth and self-sufficiency,” Montoni says.

Far-reaching impact: The foundation supports groups and programs nationwide. A few in the metropolitan Washington area include Jobs for America’s Graduates, which help potential dropouts complete high school and transition into employment, and KEEN Greater D.C., which pairs volunteers with children with physical disabilities to allow both to have fun and exercise.

Consistent and sustained growth: Since it was formed in 2000, the foundation has been able to give support in a way programs can grow with. For instance, its support of Mary’s Center, which provides culturally and linguistically appropriate services to more than 24,000 medically underserved people in the metro area, is a model for delivery of healthcare, education, and social services that can stabilize families and strengthen communities.

Sotera

John Hillen, president and CEO

An easy choice: Like many GovCon companies, Sotera counts several organizations supporting veterans and military families among its corporate responsibility work. “The U.S. military is the ultimate end-user of many of our services and solutions,” Hillen said. “Therefore supporting organizations that aid this community—active-duty military, retired members, veterans, and their families—is a key component of our corporate responsibility philosophy.”

A favorite program: The Wounded Warrior Project is one of these organizations. An unprecedented percentage of service members survive severe wounds or injuries—nearly 42,000 in Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom combined, according to WWP. The organization helps them adjust to their “new normal,” providing physical and mental health support, as well as helping with economic well-being and community connections.

A solid connection: “The Wounded Warrior Project provides valuable support to members of the U.S. armed forces as they transition back from deployment into civilian life, and some of our best employees have come from WWP recommendations,” Hillen said.

A winning event: Sotera launched its golf tournament to benefit WWP in June 2011, and it was a hit—the company is planning another this June.   GCE

Gerry Simone

Pending budget cuts raise national security—and economic—concerns.

Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta warned recently that the spending cuts the Pentagon is now absorbing will hit all 50 states. But many don’t understand how severely these cuts will be felt beyond the Beltway—and fewer still are working to prevent this damage.

The prime objective of defense spending must always be to provide for the national security. Yet such spending also translates into both jobs and economic impacts. The two massive tranches of defense cuts currently mandated by law will affect nearly every community, large and small, rich and poor. The first round of reductions, totaling $487 billion, is reflected in the current budget. Exactly where the second round—amounting to another $500 billion—will be cut remains to be seen.

It is safe to conclude, however, that such reductions will take a toll on states, localities, and enterprises across America, including small businesses owned by minorities, women, veterans, and service-disabled veterans.

The “Defense Breakdown Economic Impact Reports,” a resource provided by the Center for Security Policy, has sized up the potential economic fallout of the full $987 billion cut. A few examples follow:

• California could lose 125,789 jobs. Its economy could suffer $7.41 billion in lost earnings and a $10.79 billion decrease in Gross State Product.
• In Arkansas, the corresponding impact could be 3,452 jobs, approximately $204 million in lost earnings and a decrease of $296 million in GSP.
• And Virginia is slated to face the elimination of 22,770 jobs, a loss of $7.24 billion in earnings and $10.54 billion in GSP.

The Center’s analysis was performed for the Coalition for the Common Defense, a group of former senior military and civilian leaders (www.FortheCommon
Defense.org/reports). Information on sources, methodology and complete breakdowns by states are available through the link.

At a time when we are strenuously trying to create jobs, 100,000 active-duty military personnel are slated to lose theirs. By some estimates, more than one million additional defense sector employees will also be let go. These are generally well-paying, skilled positions—difficult to fill and near-impossible to bring back once they are gone. Even worse is the prospect that states, counties, and cities would have to absorb the impact of such reductions in the current economic environment.

National security-related jobs are a “win-win.” In providing for the common defense, they produce positive side effects, such as advancing technology, encouraging economic vitality, and supporting communities.

But one promising solution is the Down Payment to Protect National Security Act, introduced in both houses of Congress in February. This measure would fund the sequestration cuts for one year through means other than further reductions in the defense budget, thus allowing time for other approaches to be devised and adopted to reduce the deficit.

In the meantime, it behooves those responsible for the safety and prosperity of the American people to be aware that the harsh reductions in our defense capabilities now in the offing threaten both. Equipped with the information provided in the Defense Breakdown Reports, we hope our leaders and their constituents will take the steps needed to spare our country these losses.   GCE

GovConExec magazine invites leading government officials and top-level executives to comment on an issue or trend of importance to the government contracting community. If you are a member of executive management and would like to participate, please contact editor@executivemosaic.com to be considered.

The rush is on to capture the value found in massive waves of data—and deliver it to government clients in new ways they can use

It can detect a pandemic in the offing, an inappropriate tax payment, a costly electricity drain. It can guide decisions that change entire government agencies and resource use for years to come. And it’s all around us—potentially as easy to harness as the flow of wind or water.

It’s big data, and it’s transforming the way federal agencies and government contracting companies operate.

With the leap to the cloud giving big data the room to reveal its potential, agencies and GovCon companies can collect, store, and use more data than ever before. The problem this raises is simple, even if the solution is not: Civilian and defense agencies have more data than they know what to do with. And hidden in these exponentially increasing words, numbers, and images is information that can help vastly increase efficiency, productivity, and national security.

How to extract value from this tsunami of information—and how to best serve the agencies facing this problem—is a challenge many GovCon leaders are confronting head on. Big data is sparking new technology developments, strategy, and resource positioning, and it’s directing the dynamic GovCon M&A activity toward new goals.

But just how big—and valuable—is big data?

Beyond the Buzzword

The numbers are impressive. According to IBM, every day, we create 2.5 quintillion bytes of data—so much that 90 percent of the data in the world today has been created in the last two years alone.  A McKinsey Global Institute paper tells us:  $600 buys a disc drive that stores all the world’s music and 30 billion pieces of content are shared on Facebook every month (and that figure is probably outdated by the time you read this).

But one of the best big data definitions comes from a pioneer: Gartner research vice president Doug Laney, who recently told commenters in his blog that big is “entirely relative. … Therefore, the tongue-in-cheek definition I use is, ‘Big data is data that’s an order of magnitude bigger than you’re accustomed to, Grasshopper.’”

In 2000, working as an analyst at META before it became part of Gartner, Laney threw down in a research note the now ubiquitous “3Vs” of big data: Volume, velocity, and variety.

• Volume. Big data starts measuring in terabytes (1,000 gigabytes) and even petabytes (1,000 terabytes) of information. Cisco, in its 2015 predictions, sees amounts beyond this as commonplace: 1,000 petabytes equals an exabyte—and 1,000 exabytes equals a zettabyte. In a report, the company defined a zettabyte like this: the equivalent of 250 billion DVDs, 36 million years of HD video, or the volume of the Great Wall of China, if an 11-ounce cup of coffee represents a gigabyte of data.
• Velocity. Big data is also fast data. “Often time-sensitive big data must be used as it is streaming into the enterprise in order to maximize its value to the business,” IBM reports in the big data basics section of its website. Cisco’s prediction: “It would take over five years to watch the amount of video that will cross global networks every second in 2015.”
• Variety. Beyond numbers, tables, and words, big data includes video surveillance from sensors, click streams, medical records, snapshots posted to Facebook, tweets, the list goes on. At some level, it’s all fair game, and it all needs to find some kind of common ground to be useful. Big data is more often of the unstructured variety, which brings in some of the biggest challenges.  Cisco predicts: “Most of the Internet traffic by 2015 will be video—specifically, long-form video of more than seven minutes.”

What It Means to GovCon

As a consumer, you can easily see big data in play when an ad tailored to your tastes pops up on your Facebook page. But how does this transformative technology operate in the GovCon world?

“The rise of data analytics technology has allowed government agencies to analyze the outcomes of their programs, tighten the efficiency of their operations, and identify areas to cut costs,” pointed out a report from the Government Business Council, underwritten by Deloitte, titled “Demanding More: How Federal Agencies Use Data Analysis to Drive Mission.”

“The wealth of information that the public sector manages—from the data it collects from government programs to the data it is able to mine—affords opportunities for insight through analysis,” the report stated.  At the same time, budget cuts caused the Office of Management and Budget to specifically ask that agencies “acquire, analyze, evaluate, and use data to improve policy and operational decisions.”

Yet agencies surveyed for the GBC report expressed uncertainty at meeting the OMB request. “Information is currency in both business and government; but the research found that many federal agencies don’t have the data they need readily available, even with difficult financial decisions looming,” wrote Erin Dian Dumbacher, associate director of research at GBC.

And that’s something many in GovCon see as an opportunity. “Big data represents two important trends impacting federal agencies: the growth of large, unstructured data sets and real-time streaming of information from multiple sources coupled with the need to apply sophisticated analytics to massive amounts of information in order to draw insights,” said Kay Kapoor, managing director, Accenture Federal Services. “This need is growing rapidly, as agencies experience exponential growth in data volumes and complexity.”

“Imagine being able to conduct a free text search over billions of dollars’ worth of transactions in financial systems,” said Ray Muslimani, president and CEO of GCE, which does big data work for the Department of Labor and other agencies. “Or being able to identify spending trends across your agency and compare them to other agencies in real time. Or getting instant notifications from the service when patterns are identified behind the scenes. That’s the type of functionality and intelligence that big data can bring to the enterprise.”

GCE’s agency financial management solutions earned the company a place as an honoree in last year’s Government Big Data Solutions Awards, given by consultants CTO Labs; the winner was the GSA for its USASearch.

And because of its sheer size, big data touches on other hot topics: mobility, sensors, social networking, predictive analytics, and most of all, the cloud. “In practice, there is a strong tie between cloud analytics and big data,” said Mark Herman, executive vice president, Booz Allen Hamilton, who leads the company’s Cloud Analytics Center of Excellence. “We see big data capabilities as part of a broader cloud ecosystem.”

“Right now, it’s still a little bit of a mysterious topic for many of the folks who are dealing with the day-to-days of ‘how do I close the data center?’ and ‘how do I take my utilization of a server from 15 percent to 70 percent?’” said Yogesh Khanna, vice president and chief technology officer, CSC. His company was an early adopter in big data, crunching numbers for the CDC, NASA, and the EPA.

“For the first time, whether it’s through the high-performance parallel computing schemes that have become economical, or just the advent of cloud computing as a new delivery model, people can do extensive parallel processing of gobs and gobs of data … that allows us to detect patterns, using the right tools.”

Different Stages of Adoption

Federal agencies vary in their big data capabilities. Some are working on collecting data with different types of sensors, while others are using advanced analytics to try to predict behavior.

This doesn’t necessarily reflect big data maturity levels, GovCon experts say. Agencies have different needs: Those seeking to integrate health records need different kinds of capacities and security levels than those sharing climate science data with the public as transparently and completely as possible.

For instance, under GSA, Data.gov started in 2009 with 47 data sets. The site now publishes at least twice that many sets in a single month, giving citizens open access to data ranging from the latest food recalls to checking how that federal data center consolidation is progressing. The site is now moving to a single, unified cloud as part of a $21-million, five-year contract with CGI.

Other agencies are deep in analytics: executing sophisticated mining for improper payments, for instance.

Whether an agency is most concerned with protecting or disseminating information, it must look at three categories as it works with big data: collection, storage and processing, and analytics. Adding to the big data challenge, these categories often happen at the same time—data is processed and stored at once and analyzed as soon as it is collected. This simultaneous action makes alignment and strategic thinking critical. What you do with the data at any point will affect all other points. Set yourself up incorrectly, and you risk re-creating the same problems you came in with—silos, hidden data, excess storage, lost value, to name a few.

“As a new sensor or new data set gets created, we look at how agencies would integrate that information into their enterprise architecture, how they will store that data, and how they will make it readily available to their customers,” said Matthew Fahle, senior account executive, Accenture. “You have to have a balanced view across the framework.”

Taking a closer look at the categories:

Collection: From a teen’s cell phone GPS signal to sensors on a UAV in a conflict zone, data is collected constantly—and much of it by the government. Two issues most influence GovCon big data activity: historical data and unstructured data.

Using historical data, which has already been collected, and integrating this with new data is like trying to analyze a snowball rolling downhill—it picks up volume with every second. Unstructured data—video, images, everything that’s not easy to compare relationally—is a significant challenge at every stage of the process, and more and more, it represents the bulk of big data.

“To develop patterns out of unstructured data automatically, without human intervention, using analytic tools, is tough,” said Khanna. “The IT industry as a whole has been focused on structured data, but it’s the unstructured kind that is powering much of the revolution.”

Further complicating matters, said Khanna, are data disciplines left over from the past. “Data is going to waste and not being fully leveraged because it didn’t fit the data model or the retention criteria.”

Storage/processing: In its major role as a storage provider to the federal government, NetApp has developed all kinds of efficiencies in dealing with structured data. But with unstructured data, “there aren’t enough disc drives in the world to store all the data these sensors are going to suck in, nor does anyone have enough money to buy all those disc drives,” said Mark Weber, senior vice president at NetApp U.S. Public Sector.

This remains true even as storage costs go down and capacity goes up: Recently, IBM reported it encoded a single data bit onto a surface consisting of 12 atoms (typical storage would need a million atoms to store the same amount of information). And NetApp is now able to provide upwards of 55 petabytes of storage for the Department of Energy’s Sequoia supercomputer at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

Regardless, nobody needs to store for 30 years three days of video surveillance in which nothing happens—so the trick is to find ways to analyze and store only what matters.

The need to stream together historical and real-time data presents other storage challenges. Developing tools for this stage, Weber said, represents a huge opportunity. Most clients today are buying proportionately more software than simply storage capacity from NetApp because they’re seeking protection, retrieval, and the ability to use cost-effective levels of storage. Government agencies also face different regulatory requirements for data storage, and putting these seamlessly into practice with full compliance presents another opportunity.

One added wrinkle to consider in storage and processing: Data is currency, and everyone who collects it seeks ways to trade and share it to squeeze the most value out. No one wants to end up with the data equivalent of a rare baseball card hidden at the bottom of a box in the basement.

Analytics: Analytics is where the value of big data is concentrated. The point of all the collection and storage is to make better decisions based on what you learn from the data. Of course, it’s not the analytics that are new, but the scale.

Big data analytics can offer a clear picture of the current situation or forecast or even change the future. Brad Eskind, principal and federal technology and analytics leader at Deloitte, calls them “predictive and prescriptive analytics” because they help determine what will occur and what behavior to adjust. “I would say we’ve turned the corner on the descriptive aspects of big data. We’re now into the capability of providing the types of insights and foresight that can help improve outcomes.”

“The scale provided by the cloud provides a basis to transform the process of analysis from one of stitching together sparse data to derive conclusions to one of extracting conclusions from aggregation and distillation of massive data and data reflections,” said Herman of Booz Allen Hamilton. “In essence, this capability is the means by which to deliver on the promise of big data by creating new value for clients.”

“Effectively, the model of the past is being flipped,” Khanna said. Where once applications that were developed to fulfill a business need generated data, now the data drives the development of applications. “It’s a future of data as a service,” he said.

The potential of big data derives not only from this vastly enhanced pattern recognition and analysis, but from the way it happens in near-real time, thanks to the simultaneity that big data and cloud analytics allow. Khanna sketches a picture from financial services: A trader on the floor can make split-second decisions based on global information from the past few seconds analyzed in context with historical data. With such a snapshot, it’s hard not to see big data as a transformative factor in the financial market—or in any number of other markets (see sidebar, Prime Big Data Markets).

Intelligence is another natural area where the integration of historical and current data can guide near-real-time decisions. For instance, SAIC is leading a team at Georgia Tech looking at applying big data/business intelligence techniques to detecting insider threats.

Going End-to-End

Several GovCon companies have expanded their core competencies to address multiple services across the big data framework. SAP’s Sybase company is just one that has developed advanced analytics specifically to handle big data.

GeoEye, recognizing there’s more to big data than collecting imagery, has invested in analytics, hosting, dissemination, and processing technologies while continuing its core capacity to collect, process, and disseminate more than 1 million square kilometers of high-resolution imagery daily. Last year, GeoEye won a $3.8-billion, 10-year contract with the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency for imagery and other products and services.

“To eliminate the complexity of dealing with big data, we have moved into providing hosting and dissemination services directly to our government customers,” said Brian O’Toole, GeoEye chief technology officer. “In the past, the U.S. government would be solely responsible for receiving our imagery, cataloging the raw data, and making it available in a government-run archival system. Now we provide those services, through a software-as-a-service model.”

Big Challenges Still Ahead

With all the benefits and GovCon potential attached to big data, there are still a few obstacles to realizing the full value. The biggest, as usual with government functions, is security. How do you avoid showing your hand with data being shuffled and cut on every possible playing table?

Compliance issues could get lost in the shuffle, some have pointed out. The promise of using healthcare IT and records in research has already prompted calls from the federal Health Information Technology Policy Committee to clarify what constitutes “research” and to define how widely big health data will be disseminated and used.

“To address big data security, Northrop Grumman has developed unique methods that protect data in the cloud regardless of specific service models,” said Kathy Warden, vice president and general manager, Northrop Grumman Information Systems, Cyber Intelligence Division. “This approach prevents exposure of the data to unauthorized users and protects the data from being accessed by cloud provider insiders, like system administrators. The solution allows users to securely migrate mission-critical data to the cloud.”

Big data by its nature destroys silos. And if agencies want to reap the best, they’ll need the capabilities, the policy backup, and the security to exchange data freely.

Khanna sees a lack of standards in managing unstructured data as a key roadblock. The big players such as Google, Amazon, and Facebook aren’t talking to each other about standardization—yet efficient government use of big data depends on standards. The National Institute of Standards and Technology has been working for some time to get standards in unstructured data, and IT lab director Chuck Romine recently told media that it’s going to step up the pace.

Another emerging challenge and major need is the “readability” of data analysis. GeoEye is focused on visual representation, using its EyeQ platform to provide on-demand visualization in near-real time, even in its legacy applications. In addition to working in every other aspect of big data, SAP-GSS provides solutions that render big data insights in intuitive, visual, user-friendly formats.

While big data may appear to present a storage nightmare, its abundance is actually a good problem to have. “Data that used to be ‘retired’ to tape when data warehousing can now be kept alive for future analysis to yield valuable insights that we cannot imagine now,” said Peter Doolan, group vice president, Oracle Public Sector.

Such “zombie data” presents an opportunity—and Sotera in particular has lost no time in exploring it. “We have found that big data opens up a large number of non-traditional analytical techniques that augment traditional data analysis,” said Russell Richardson, CEO, Potomac Fusion, a Sotera Defense Solutions company. “These techniques offer a new purpose for information already collected, and in most cases, this existing data is re-purposed to derive military intelligence not conceived of when the data was originally collected.”

Lastly, the speed at which big data is changing the landscape presents a challenge—but one that might motivate faster changes in realizing big data’s value in government. “In the past, government has been known to set its own standards for performance and security,” said Rich Rosenthal, chief technology officer, TASC. “This is a case where the government could take advantage of the commercial sector’s forward thinking, adopt its approaches, and let the entrepreneurs move full-speed ahead.”

The Open-Source Factor

When you use Twitter, LinkedIn, or dozens of other social media services, you’ve used Hadoop, the open-source technology at the heart of big data.

But Hadoop is actually part of an “ecosystem” comprising Hadoop storage and MapReduce processing. The technology from Apache hasn’t yet encountered a data set too large to analyze and can work across one or multiple computers. It is described as “forgiving” or “self-healing” because it compensates for problems found on servers.

Many GovCon companies work with Cloudera, which develops open-source distribution for Hadoop, integrating and “cleaning up” products to ensure reliability. Oracle’s Big Data Appliance uses Cloudera Hadoop, for instance; Sotera is another using this combination.

However, because it’s open and free, agencies themselves have been building their own big data technologies. NSA, for one, has had a distributed intelligence database with Hadoop for two years.

So why would agencies look to contractors if they can do it themselves? Because while Hadoop is forgiving, it’s not endlessly elastic. Getting the right fit for an agency’s mission can be a challenge. In short, it’s not free if it takes up valuable staff resources to adopt it.

“Contractors have an opportunity to enhance and extend the open-source technologies in a way that focuses their power on the business needs of the government and makes them easier for agency personnel to adopt,” said Peter Doolan, group vice president, Oracle Public Sector. “None of the [solutions] completely solve a business need ‘out of the box,’ so they must be adapted to the specific use and then maintained. When the total cost of ownership is considered, including ancillaries like end-user training, sometimes the commercial solutions, while more expensive up front, may prove to be significantly cheaper over time.”

Microsoft, meanwhile, is concentrating on bringing big data to the masses. “There are two major challenges facing any organization utilizing big data today,” said Susie Adams, chief technology officer, Microsoft, “installing and maintaining the complex array of software and hardware needed to run big data workloads and finding individuals with the skill sets needed to operate this infrastructure.” Microsoft addresses both, she said, by enabling its Office, business intelligence, cloud, and enterprise data processing platforms to connect to Hadoop, which can run as a service on Azur e or on-premise on a Windows server.

As pioneers in open-source, Red Hat continues to lead, and late last year acquired Gluster, an open-source storage solutions provider. “There has been a tremendous level of interest from our federal customers and prospects,” said Paul Smith, vice president and general manager, public sector, Red Hat. “The federal government is a big user of open-source technologies.”

Prime Big Data Markets

Notorious bank robber Willie Sutton, when asked why he robbed banks, is said to have replied: “Because that’s where the money is.” Taking the same approach to market focus, Booz Allen Hamilton is “loosely tied to the Willie Sutton principle—in other words, we are going where the data is kept,” said Mark Herman, executive vice president.

In which markets do government contracting companies see the data “banked”? Intelligence, of course, is the most obvious. But here are a few others:

Financial and improper payments: Analytics are already advanced in this market, and big data just makes the case stronger and the fraud detection more precise. Deloitte is traditionally strong in this area. OPM is using SAS analytic software to scan for improper payments in federal employee health insurance claims.

Electronic health records: This area is being mined for value far and wide, from CMS to the VA. The benefits include better quality of care, increased productivity, and elimination of redundancies. SAS software is being used to analyze millions of records in the CMS Chronic Condition Data Warehouse, a case of historical and current data working together for new insights.

Climate and weather science: From solar flares to rogue waves, understanding and predicting weather on earth and in space both depends on big data and benefits from it. Breaking silos could lead to advances such as coordinating emergency services, social media, and weather prediction during a storm, for instance.

Trade and immigration: The flow of goods and people generates enormous amounts of data, all of which could guide decisions in economic policy, law and drug enforcement, public health action, food safety measures, homeland security, and more.

Many more markets stand to benefit from big data where government contracting can apply. Supply chain and logistics, with its constantly growing complexity, is another natural market, one in which several government contractors, including SAIC, have expertise. Utilities are another, and again, SAIC shows up here, providing “smart grid” solutions in an area where usage data is vast and individualized, timing is everything, and significant, ongoing savings in costs and energy can be realized once what’s learned from that data is applied.

Big Data Helps Drive Acquisitions

Many GovCon companies beefed up their big data capacities through acquisitions. Here are a few transactions that resulted in enhanced big data positioning:

• IBM expanded big data analytics software offerings by acquiring intelligence analytics firm i2 Group.

• RedHat acquired Gluster, an open-source storage provider.

• General Dynamics purchased healthcare IT provider Vangent, with its strengths in electronic health records and data analytics.

• CSC bought Maricom Systems, Inc., a provider of healthcare IT business intelligence and data management, and iSOFT Group Limited, and appointed its former CEO as chief operating officer of CSC’s healthcare business.

• TASC acquired TexelTek, which specializes in geospatial, visualization, and analytics.

• ICF acquired Ironworks, a web, mobile, and social media platform provider in health, energy, and financial services sectors.

• Sotera bought Potomac Fusion, which develops cloud and ISR solutions.

• Deloitte bought Ubermind, which develops intuitive mobile applications.

• NetApp bought LSI, whose fast and dense storage performance represents a significant big data opportunity.

• Oracle acquired Endeca, with capabilities in unstructured data and business intelligence.

• ManTech acquired Evolvent, a healthcare systems integrator with contracts for big data related projects for CMS and the VA.

GCE

From his years in the Air Force to his leadership with the Cloud2 Commission, Deloitte Federal Services CEO Robin Lineberger advances strategy through his practical management of far-reaching innovation

There is a type among Washington government contractors for whom the commitment to public service is so ingrained that it’s a given. It’s not usually something they talk about or to which they draw attention. It’s just a part of their nature. They’re found throughout contracting businesses, from the entry levels to the C-suites. And Deloitte Federal Government Services CEO Robin Lineberger is one of them.

“What shaped me the most is being a third-generation veteran,” the former Air Force officer says, seated at a small conference table in his simple office, with a desk covered with family photos and challenge coins. “Many [leaving] the military could go anywhere but chose to operate in the public sector. I wanted to continue to give back … to enhance the security and the posture of the United States from a competitiveness standpoint, as well as from a physical security standpoint.”

The Deloitte building commands an impressive view of the Potomac and Key Bridge, but the glass walls of Lineberger’s office look out on rows of cubicles. Not much sets his office apart from others on the floor. Deloitte Federal Government Services, which serves every Cabinet-level agency in the U.S. government, provides leading-edge solutions through increased investment in innovation centers, talents, and acquisitions. And it has experienced rapid growth, some through acquisition, some through strategy. Federal Government Services now stands at 6,600 employees and an estimated $1.7 billion in revenue. What’s more, by all accounts, its growth curve will continue on an upward trend.

Lineberger takes pains to make clear that this growth was also driven by the perfect storm conditions of government needs and company positioning. Deloitte’s government organization has been able to draw not only on its long federal contracting experience but also on capacities especially sought after in times of budget tightening—capacities ranging from forensic accounting to health care to consolidation services.

That said, with government’s increasing need for technology, Lineberger’s particular expertise in managing the process of technology development can’t be underrated as part of the organization’s success.

Although he holds an MBA in information systems management from Oklahoma City University, Lineberger’s approach to managing technology dates back long before college. He points to the military culture in which he was raised as shaping his process leadership style: It was a culture “characterized by strong personal leadership, respect for authority, individual responsibility, and accountability,” he says. “I don’t tell people what to do prescriptively. It’s more objective-oriented. I rely on people to take initiative. I tend to think of management as a strong leadership role rather than an administrative role because of how I grew up.”

Tough Decisions

His father was killed in action as a pilot in Cambodia in 1971; his grandfather had been wounded at Pearl Harbor. It was inevitable that Lineberger would end up in the Air Force, where he headed software development for AWACS (Airborne Warning and Control System).

Out of the Air Force in 1985, the native Texan took a job as a consultant with what became KPMG and was later branded as BearingPoint. He turned from radar to sonar at the Naval Underwater Systems Center in Connecticut, honing his technology management abilities, working for the balance between meeting deadlines and budgets yet still encouraging innovation.

His career would soar to new heights at the Johnson Space Center, which Lineberger regards as one of his peak work experiences as a consultant. His job: to develop strategy to segue the facility into a post–Cold War global center for innovation, one that would engage Soviet scientists in international research. Here, he had the chance to work with Gene Kranz, the NASA Flight Director of Apollo 13 fame, whom Lineberger calls “a ton of fun—a very interesting, very charismatic leader.”

Lineberger’s management approach was put to the test when, after 24 years at BearingPoint, he faced that company’s bankruptcy and its acquisition by Deloitte. The stakes were high: 3,500 jobs in the public sector division. “People could have been put out on the market in one of the worst economic times,” he recalls. “You shoulder that responsibility as a leader. They’re the family I worked with. They had worked hard for us—and with us.

“To help successfully give every one of them the opportunity to come over to a meaningful job at a world-class firm, that’s my biggest satisfaction, bar none. It’s all about the people.” The 3,500 combined with existing Deloitte employees and got back to work. Since the 2009 acquisition, the number of Federal Government Services employees has grown by about 2,000.

A match in corporate culture—owner-operated, partnership models—contributed to that success, he points out. “It wasn’t about me; it’s the business fit,” Lineberger adds. “It’s a genius fit.”

The crew moving to Deloitte had deep experience in the channels that connected to federal government needs. And Deloitte has the broad experience in services. The acquisition had the effect of attaching a faucet to a pipe: the bottled-up capabilities now had an efficient way to flow to where they were needed.

With more government budget cuts and an intensified need for efficiency ahead, Lineberger sees continued growth opportunities for Federal Government Services. And he’s positioning the organization accordingly. “This is our firm’s calling. We’re about business management consulting. We’ve been dealing with these challenges in the commercial environment for years. And now that it’s starting to substantiate in the federal government, we have the tools, techniques, and practices to put to work.”

‘Extreme Diversity’

“It’s what I call extreme diversity,” Lineberger says of the working method that has contributed to the growth of Federal Government Services. “You need a diverse set of people in the room if you’re going to innovate.

“You can’t just have the one researcher doing his or her own thing. If the approach is too narrow, then when you get in the midstage of technology development, you have to think about its reliability and its ability to be manufactured and maintained. You’ve got to bring all that capability together if you want to accelerate through the innovation process so you can apply it effectively to meet the mission.”

Take Lineberger’s work with the TechAmerica Foundation’s Commission on the Leadership Opportunity in U.S. Deployment of the Cloud (CLOUD2). The key, he says, is developing a “trust cloud” among government and commercial practitioners—people who understand the technology and people who understand the market needs—primarily for security.

“Then you have the policy field that says, all right, if we have a technologically sound system that has trust, how do we conduct acquisitions that ensure a trusted cloud provider can be readily identified and easily procured? How then do we take it to the policy side?

“You’re working with all of them at the table at the same time, rather than taking one step and realizing the next step doesn’t work because of that decision—and you have to go back.”

The upshot: Diversity gets results. This is the cloud, after all—no place for blue-sky thinking.

It’s a similar mindset to the one that gets put into play daily at Deloitte’s Centers for Federal Innovation and Cyber Innovation, neighbors to Federal Services. These centers pull together professionals from multiple disciplines, with orders to innovate—but always toward “production-ready solutions” and “real-world deployments.”

“It’s all about managing the technology development process, managing innovations, so the technology can be applied,” Lineberger says. “This can happen at a very low level, for a particular solution, or all the way up to a sector or industry level, for a broad-based concept like cloud.”

Recognition Roll Call

• Executive Committee, Deloitte U.S. Firms
• Outstanding Achievement Award in Industry, Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association (AFCEA), Bethesda chapter, 2011
• Commissioner, TechAmerica Foundation’s Commission on the Leadership Opportunity in U.S. Deployment of the Cloud (CLOUD2)
• Executive committee, Professional Services Council
• Treasurer, Northern Virginia Technology Council
• Co-chair, National Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition advisory board
• Advisory board member, Ride 2 Recovery
• Mentor, American Corporate Partners program
• Co-chair, 2012 Leukemia Ball

Philanthropic Process

Interestingly, the approach to process extends to Lineberger’s charitable work, which is significant. What, he analyzed, would allow the maximum benefit to others, be a successful fundraiser, align with the company, and plug in to his own concerns—helping veterans and staying fit? One answer came in the Ride 2 Recovery, an endurance cycling event (think races of about 350 miles and five or six days) where he is not just a contributor but a participant. The Ride is a combination fundraiser and rehabilitation activity for disabled veterans and their supporters. Endurance athletics have long been part of his philanthropic work, but this time, it was personal.

“You see both the positive and the negative impacts of what happens when you’re either wounded or when you lose someone in the family, just living and experiencing that from a very young age. I just—I know what the issues are. I know what people deal with.”

Along the road, there was lots of time for talking. He also works with American Corporate Partners to mentor veterans transitioning to the workplace, helping them translate their service activity to business terms. Lineberger marvels at the engineering adaptations vets and their supporters have made to their bikes and equipment, as well as at the strength of mind and heart they display (and shares how he was left eating dust by the elite para-athletes). The events are also a feeder system for athletes in the Warrior Games, Deloitte’s five-day sports event for military personnel with physical disabilities, in which Lineberger also participates.

Does anything not fit into the process? Well, there’s the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. In the past, Lineberger has taken part in the Olympic-length triathlon for that cause, but this year he’s opting just to co-chair the ball. He’ll manage the technology and find the time.   GCE